For Sale - 1 Jetta with a burned out clutch

Well, I probably did a dumb thing but after much searching and hemming and hawing, we bought a car for Kyle. We found a '97 Jetta for 4K. It was in very good condition so we jumped on it. The only thing is,... it's a manual. Yes, that's right, Kyle doesn't know how to drive a stick. We had our first lesson today. He did alright but he's very nervous about it. He's not ready for traffic yet so we spent a lot of time just going up and down the driveway backwards and forwards so he could get the feel of it. He had to take several breaks since he was so tense. We took a few trips around the neighborhood so he could get out of first.

He's really torn up about the whole thing though. He loves the car but he doesn't want to go through the whole learning process. In hind site, it probably wasn't real smart of me to go for the manual.

The purchase ordeal was another "adventure". The person selling the car was in Newton which is just outside of Boston so it was a long trip there in the first place. When we got there, the owner asked for my driver's license before we test drove it. Guess what I couldn't find? We had been test driving vehicles at various dealers who all ask for my license. Last time I remembered having it was at a dealer the other day. I called Carly at home to have her look for it in my other jacket but she couldn't find it. Great! The owner was very understanding and took Kyle's license number and let us drive it. We liked it and arrived at a price and then set about the process of taking ownership. First, I had to go find a bank, get a cashier's check, bring that to the owner. She then gave me the title which I had to take to my Insurance Agent to get an insurance form proving to the DMV that it was insured. On the way over, Kyle and I are wondering whether they will ask to see my license for some reason which would, of course, scuttle the whole deal. We got through that OK so then I had to find and go to the DMV to get plates. We got to the DMV and took a number - A062 - and looked up to see "Now serving A020" of course. Again, we are wondering whether we can pull this off without a license. We also note that they no longer take credit cards for payment - cash or check. Hmm, I wonder how much this will be... We decide to run out and find an ATM before they get to our number. I grab $100 extra bucks from the ATM to go along with our $60 or so (you know where this is going don't you). We finally get to a window and the woman asks for my license. "I don't have it with me, my son drove here." She says "Do you always go out without your ID?" "You come to the Registry without your license?" and then proceeds to process the transaction. (and I don't say) "So if you can still do this without my license, why did you feel the need to chastise me for not having it?"

She totals it up - $280!!! Oops. "I don't have that much with me." "Here, come back when you can pay." So we walk out of the DMV with no plates. Do we go back to the ATM to get more money and wait in line again or do we just go get the car, take the front plate from the Camry and put it on the back of the Jetta, and hope we don't get caught? I bet you can guess what we did can't you?

So I'm driving the Jetta home with no license, no registration, and "stolen" plates. I bet you thought you knew where this was going didn't you. Well, we made it home with no incident (think of the blog entry *that* could have spawned!)

I've been razzing Kyle about how I'm going to be driving the Jetta and he'll be stuck with the Camry since he's going to give up on the stick in frustration. I'm trying to use "psychology" on him but I'm a little worried he's going to end up calling my bluff...

eBay is Fun

I know I'm a bit late to the party but I've been having a bit of fun selling various things on eBay lately. I've bought one or two things before but it always seemed that the people selling things were more of a business than just Joe Average trying to off-load some of his own crap so I never felt like I was getting a deal.

I've thought about selling things before as well - you know, those Christmas gifts that you've been meaning to re-gift but couldn't think of anybody you wouldn't be embarrassed to give it to. I always held back on that because there were fees, and shipping, and scams. Man, all the information about the scams is enough to stop you right there. There are so many things to watch out for, it's always been just easier to stack the stuff up in the basement.

Well, after I sold the motorcycle this Fall, we had several sets of motorcycle jackets and pants taking up room so I figured I would try to unload them on eBay. I also had a perfect unregiftable item as well. It was actually easier than I thought. They do a very good job of walking you through the whole process. All you need to do is take a few digital pics of the items and they'll help you upload them and create an auction. I sold four of the five items (1 regift, 2 jackets and 2 pants) and I think I'll be able to sell the fifth by re-listing it. I got a good price for one of the pants, a medium price for the other pants and a very low price for one of the jackets. I probably only recouped a fraction of what I paid for those things but they were of zero value in the basement so I choose to look at it as coming out ahead. I even sold the regift item - people will buy anything!

The packing and shipping are a little bit confusing but you can do everything online - including printing out paid shipping labels so it really is easy. All in all, it's been fun and I find myself going around the house looking for more things to sell... here Skip!

Wildflower

Just got Sheryl Crow's new CD - Wildflower. I've never been that interested in owning any of her stuff but now that she's hanging around Lance and all... I was in Borders the other day and happened to see it. I gave it a test listen at one of those headphone/lice nursery kiosks and it sounded pretty good. Upon full listen, it is great! I heartily recommend this album. There's really only one, maybe two slightly pop-sounding tunes and those are really catchy. The rest are beautiful ballads. She really has a fabulous voice and she puts in little inflections here and there that just make it that much better. Go get this one.

A Karma is threatening to run over my Dogma

Surprise, surprise! Kyle wants a car. This has been the running theme in the house for about a month or so now - probably longer but I've been able to ignore it up until now. The persuasion tactics seem to oscillate between the utter despair that "Everyone has a car but me" to calm, reasoned arguments such as "Everyone has a car but me." He's even got Carly ganged up on me. They point out how much more convenient it would be if Mom didn't have to run around and pick them up from their various activities and so on.

I've always maintained that I was not going to get them a car in High School. Heck, I didn't get my first car until I was graduating from college and look how I turned out...OK, skip that part. Anyway, I still really have a tough time seeing how the minor increase in convenience outweighs the added cost. It seems especially irresponsible with college coming up in less than a year. Still, they do have a point. Virtually every kid in Kyle's class does have a car and it would help in situations where he's going to practice or work or wherever.

I've even asked people at work about it. Of course, I got one guy who said getting one was a good thing and another who said he didn't get his kids a car and they turned out alright.

Such a dilemma. WWJD.

Man the Pumps!

Deb and I took a belated Anniversary getaway weekend camping trip up in New Hampshire last weekend. It absolutely poured! It actually started raining the weekend before and hadn't stopped - really, I don't think it ever stopped raining - by the time we left. It finally stopped raining on Sunday morning when we were packing up to come home.

The campground was saturated and normally this means - mud and lots of it. We took the Skipster with us which means - mud in the camper and lots of it. Strangely though, there was practically none. The soil was a strange sandy composition so our shoes and paws - and the camper - stayed remarkably clean.

Coming home we stopped by a huge quilt store that Deb adores. As much as I was tempted to go in, I stayed in the camper to keep Skip company (yeah right). Planning on hours of boredom, I happened to spot a canoe and kayak store across the street. Well, ever since the Greenway challenge adventure I've been thinking more and more about kayaks. I've even bought a couple of books. So, I went over and chatted with the owner for awhile. He had some really beautiful boats and I'm really starting to get the bug to give this a try. There are a number of places in Rhode Island that have lesson/tour arrangements that I think we are going to try. I'm not sure if we could get something in this year or if we'd have to wait until Spring so we'll see. My biggest concern is my back and it would hold up with all the twisting motion.

Anyway, on the way home, we saw some amazing torrents of water coming down various rivers. When we got home, several areas of Uxbridge and surrounding towns were flooded/closed/damaged from all the water. The kids even had a "flood day" on Monday, apparently because some of the bus routes were impassable. Crazy

TSA Playtime

I love it when people bring out the inherent humor in simple things. Check this Airport Security playset.

More Fun with Religion

Here's a link to another blog that is pretty fun to read. The comments are equally as fun. My favorite comment was this;

You know the old saying:

CULT (n): a small, unpopular religion.
RELIGION (n): a large, popular cult.

22 Years!

Hard to believe we've been married that long. Seems like only yesterday that she tricked me into marrying her :-). As is typical, we didn't really do anything very special. The High School football team was home today so we got assigned to work in the concession stand at the game. After that, we went for a short tandem ride. Ironically, we passed by a house where there was a small wedding going on. I was tempted to stop and wish them good luck but I didn't.

We had to get back early so that Carly could go on her first date! Well, sort of. She and Jill were going to the movies with Myles and Ian. It's not really clear who was with whom or even if that applied in this situation. After the movie, that expectant "How was it!" was met with the typical and deflating "fine." Oh well. Mom and Dad would say I deserve that - in spades.

The Proper Method - The Video

This is about tandems if you're interested. I subscribe to a tandem-centric mailing list where people converse about all things tandem. Occaisionally, a new team will post a message along the lines of "New to tandeming. Finding it difficult to get started smoothly." It can be a challenge to get two people synchronized and get the bike balanced at low speed if you don't know the tricks. These kinds of posts generate a chorus of responses which generally describe a technique known as - The Proper Method. There are completly different ways of getting started (and stopped) on a tandem but one method - The Proper Method - is what most people use and try to teach to tandem Newbies.

The Proper Method - usually shortened to just TPM - is generally credited to Bill McCready who is the founder of Santana Cycles - one of the largest and arguably most influential tandem makers. Bill knows a lot about tandems and if you don't believe it, just ask him. He has very definite ideas about the way things should be done and the merits of Santana bikes. He is also very much an advocate of tandeming in general and pushes the envelope in tandem design and product development for all builders and parts suppliers. People on the list seem to either love him or hate him but all, I think, respect what he's done for their sport and the industry. Anyway, Bill is credited with describing TPM. He basically said this is how I think it should be done - the proper method for getting started and stopped on a tandem. It has become so ingrained that it took on a formal name for itself - The Proper Method.

So back to the Newbie asking for help. The replies describe TPM or send the requestor to some other web site which describes the method or whatever. This process is repeated for each Newbie who doesn't bother to search the archives to see if someone else has asked the question already (hint, hint you Newbies). During one such event, someone said "You know, someone should really make a video of TPM and it would make the whole process easier to follow." Well, given my interest in video editing, this sounded like a fun project to tackle. So Deb and I drafted Carly to take some video of us starting out on the tandem using TPM. I edited the footage together with some text instructions and produced TPM - The Video. It's a small video file that you can download and play in pretty much any browser. It's located here

After I made the video, I notified the list members and invited comments. Everyone seemed thrilled that I had done it. There were comments about how they did it slightly differently or whatever but most people thought it would really help out the Nubes.

My next tandem video is going to be "How to Stand". Most teams find it even harder to get smooth enough for both riders to stand and pedal at the same time. Deb and I couldn't do it at first but we kept working at it and have now gotten pretty good at it. One of these days I'm going to make a video that shows the steps we took to figure it all out.

Challenge Met

Alert the media! We have survived the Greenway Challenge!

But let's start back at the beginning which is actually about Tuesday - the day both Deb and I start feeling scratchy throats and general crappiness. Lovely. By Friday night, both of us are on NyQuill and Motrin. Can't quit now I guess. We arrived at the Gorge at about 10:40. 10:50 was the fastest time for this checkpoint recorded in a dry run in the Spring when the river was running faster so nobody expected any teams to get there by then but we had to be sure. We were among the first to arrive and, as we stood around and chatted with the volunteers, the racer-boys started to trickle in. Shaved legs, feather-weight bikes, one guy even had a $1500 rear wheel - yes one wheel - that measured his power output in watts! Ruh-roh Rastro!

So we wait and wait. They finally got the word that the first boat had put in on the leg leading to us. The operation was that the spotters would get the number of the team as the boat got close to the end of the leg and the corresponding biker would move into position for the transfer. Each team had to transfer a little wrist band to the next person. The kayaker would have to jump out of their boat, drag it up a hill, drop it and run to the bike transition point to make the hand-off. By this time the transition area was packed with bikes. Deb and I were desperately scanning the crowd to pick out people who we thought we could beat so that we wouldn't come in dead last. OK, there's a woman with sneakers and toe clips - check. There's a gray haired lady on a bike with a rack and some kind of decoration in her helmet - check. Here's another whom I have to help pump up her tires because she doesn't have a pump and doesn't know how to use the one I lend her. She also remarks that she's probably going to have to push her bike up the hill out of the Gorge - check.

The first boat is spotted - team 20 (we are team 7). The kayaker comes running up the hill slaps the hand of his teammate on a bike with tri-bars and a disk wheel who rockets out of the area, up the hill and out of site. One guy comments "Oh yeah, that guy has a couple of State Championships under his belt." Oh, State Champion you say? And you race with him? Perfect. The next boat is called - team 41. The paddler comes running up the hill with a line around his waist dragging his boat! Wonderful! By now Deb and I have found religion and are fervently praying for a major disaster to have befallen our kayaker so that all these Tour de France wannabees can take off before we do. We can hear it now, "Yeah we were in 3rd place until the last bike leg when Tom and Deb got blown away by the real bike riders." So, the 4th team comes in, the 5th, 6th, 7th. I lose track of the exact count. Ok, Ok, they're gonna be way back, we're gonna be racing against Ma Kettle and her mountain bike over there. You know where this is going don't you?

Team 7! Gulp! Did you say Team 7's boat is coming?! Yikes! We move the tandem sheepishly past all the gleaming bikes and snorting bulls pawing at the ground ('scuse us, 'scuse us) and get into position. In no time two kayakers are coming up the hill to us. Our girl is slightly behind another team. We make the hand off and go. We are about 20 yards behind the other biker. He motors up the hill and we motor up the hill just as fast. Ok, Ok, he's not killing us. We pretty much stay just behind him for the first few turns. When we reach a downhill, we go past him but not really pushing hard because we know what's coming up and don't want to waste it now. I'm hoping that we'll be fast enough without a lot of effort to slowly drop him on the flats and slight downhills. After a bit, I look back and - no such luck. He's staying with us.

We come to a short stretch on a major street where we have to take a left turn to another road. The traffic is horrible. There's about 50 cars in the left lane coming up to the light. Our buddy cuts left to the center line to go around them - and us! Well, it is a race! I cut between two cars and follow on the center line toward the light. As I'm pondering how the Hell we are going to manage a left turn in front of all the cars lined up coming this way, I see a cop come out and hold up traffic. We stomp on it, fly through the intersection, and catch up with our rabbit. Again, we pretty much stay together until we get to a hillier section where he starts to pull away. Deb and I are suffering mightily at this point. We are both wheezing from having to breathe so deeply against the hacking cough that we (especially Deb) had the night before and this morning. The spit in our mouths is turning the consistency of glue as well. I tried to spit a couple of times but it all just hangs together and blows over my shoulder and down my back. Yum!

We keep our guy in sight but he's definitely pulling away. We come to an intersection and there are several cars coming from both directions so I suppose that's why I totally miss any semblance a sign telling us to turn left. I roll through wondering "is that it?" but I keep going. We get to the next intersection and I realize that I should have taken that left. Crap! I know that this is the road that the first left would have eventually come to and sure enough I see the road on the left as we come back. So, we are back on track after a detour of about 2 or 3 minutes. Crap! Crap! Crap! Our guy is now out of sight.

Two more turns and we are on Woonsocket Hill Road. We are now pretty much wasted and we struggle up the hills on this road. A couple of times we are barely moving. We finally get to the top and the payback. We shift to our biggest gear, put our heads down, and hammer. I can't even look at the speedo but we are flying. It's over all too quick though and there's a decent uphill to the next turn. Just as we approach the turn, a guy goes by us. Crap! Where did he come from? We play cat and mouse with him through another right and left in traffic again. Another cop strategically placed lets us blast through without slowing. As we approach downtown Woonsocket there is absolute gridlock. Racer-boy weaves through the cars and drops us. We are in the right-hand lane which opens up nicely until a car cuts in front of us and squeezes us into the curb. I slam on the brakes while Deb drops the F-bomb on the driver. I clip back in and try to wind us up again. Mass confusion at the light. The cop waves us through and points to an opening in the curb where a volunteer stands waving us to come towards him. I'm thinking "well get the Hell out of the way then!" We swerve past him and he shouts "No, turn right!" I grab the brakes, cut right down an alley between two buildings turn left, and "Mother of God!", there's the finish line. We screech to a stop in front of our next leg teammates, Deb hands off the bracelet, and we slump over the bike in total exhaustion.

After we regain small motor control, we chat with our kayak partner who came down after tagging us at the Gorge. She had some problems and lost a few places. Well, we really only lost one more since we actually started behind the first guy. We chatted with some other people we knew and finally got back on the bike for the ride back to the car - back at the Gorge. Thankfully, it was only a couple of miles away. As we meandered back to the car, we started to feel pretty good about our effort. I was still kicking myself for missing that turn. I know we would have held off that second guy had we not missed it but the mongrel hordes didn't sweep by us like we had feared they would. I looked down at the speedo and noticed our average speed was 18.1 miles/hour! Holy crap! That's not bad! Hmm. I wonder how fast we got on that downhill part? Whaa? 47.7 mph!?!?! Holy Holy crap! That's practically Free Fall!

We loaded up the tandem on the car and made our way to the finish area where they had a cook-out, a band, and the standings. As we are walking toward the finish line from the parking lot, we see our runner go by and across the line. Hmm. I wonder how we did. Let's see, Whitinsville Community Center - 11th place overall! Wow! Let's look at the Recreational Division. 2nd place?! Super Wow! Deb and I look at each other in amazement.

So all-in-all, it was pretty fun. Deb remarked that that was the first race she'd ever been in. I said "You're not going to want to do this again next year are you?" She just raised her eyebrows in that "Ya never know" look.

Gotta love that Deb.

How Green is my Challenge?

Gotta love that Deb.

The Whitinsville Community Center where she works is a sponsor of a local competition called the Greenway Challenge. It's kind of a relay Tri-athalon through the local area with canoeing/kayaking instead of swimming to go along with running and cycling. You know where this is going don't you? Her boss mentioned that they didn't have anyone to fill the second bicycle leg, Deb said that we ride all the time on the tandem, he said...

Right. So today we did a test ride of the course. This, after I attempted to drive the course the other day. You know how the stereotypical New England directions center around "Ya caan't get theya from heeya"? Well, it's not because you can't physically get there, it's because they don't bother to put any freaking signs between here and there! The course is only 12 miles but I managed to spend about an hour trying to drive the thing. I never did find the last 3 miles of it.

We set out on the tandem to give it spin. Now, this bike is pretty nice - this ain't Daisy's bicycle built for two with baskets and bouncy seats - and we're not afraid to make it go fast but tandems are notoriously slow going uphill. You know where this is going don't you? Let's see, our leg follows a kayak leg. The kayak leg finishes at the Blackstone Gorge. Gorge? Perfect.

Right. So we start the ride with a gut wrenching climb out of the Gorge. Actually it wasn't that bad but we weren't warmed up at all and it put us into some Oxygen debt right off the bat. Note to self - warm up first on race day. Reply from self - since you are the 5th leg out of 7, and there are 70 teams that will be strung out all along the Blackstone Valley how in the Hell are you going to know when your kayak person is going to arrive at the freaking Gorge so you can time your warm up, huh Lance-boy?

Deb had pinned the route sheet to the back of my jersey so she could navigate and call out turns while I drive. We got this idea when we rode with another tandem group a couple months ago. Did I mention that she used two safety pins on the top of the sheet? Did I mention that the airflow over and around the Captain's back is not particularly smooth? You know where this is going don't you? Less than a mile down the road, after the route sheet has practically torn itself to shreds in the vortex, Deb unpins it and puts it in my back jersey pocket. I knew this part of the ride anyway so it wasn't a big deal. Anyway, we navigate a few turns and then start a moderate climb. It's not a big climb at all but when you are pushing hard, it starts to hurt. A lot.

I had been wondering how best to ride the course. As I mentioned, the tandem is tough to go uphill with but on the flats and especially on the downhills, it flies. We can easily drop strong singles when we get even a slight downhill. So I didn't know whether it made sense to give it everything we had on the climbs and recover on the easy part or to just pace it uphill and crank on the downs. I think it makes the most sense to push hard on the hills and recover on the downs because the speed differential between us an the singles is greater on the uphills and that differential lasts for a longer time. I still think that's true in theory but it's hard to do in practice. You don't want to "crack" - build up so much lactic acid in your muscles that they just shut down - and we got close to that a couple of times today. One of the great things about cycling is that you can be near total exhaustion one minute and then, after just a short recovery period where you just ease up a little, be back to full strength and ready to crank the next.

Well, we got to the part that I hadn't found on my driving tour. The name of the road is Woonsocket Hill Road. You know where this is going don't you? We actually stopped at a fire station to ask if this was the proper road. The guy there said it was and mentioned that "it has some pretty good hills too". Perfect. When motorists notice the hills, you know it's bad. It was bad. We struggled over the top imagining all the featherweight singles blowing by us. The fireman also said that the downhill payback was pretty good though too. He was right. We almost went supersonic coming down the other side. OK, we only hit 44 mph but I was taking it relatively easy since I wasn't sure if there was a stop sign or something at the bottom. There wasn't so I imagine we will approach about 50 on race day! As a bonus, Deb's shrieking should clear out all the small animals that might otherwise be tempted to run across the road in front of us. From there it was a short ride into the heart of downtown Woonsocket - to the Museum of Work and Culture. Doesn't that sound like a 5th grade field trip from Hell.

So we finished it in about 45 minutes for an average of about 16.5 miles per hour which isn't real good. The thing is, we are in the Recreational division. Not the Championship division. Not the Corporate division. Not the Tri-athlete division. The Recreational division. When I clarified this with Deb's boss he said yeah, we might get first or second in the Rec division but I'm interested in how we do overall. What? You've got middle aged, weekend athlete posers on this team and you want to compete for the overall? That kind of attitude and added pressure takes some of the fun out of it.

Oh, after we finished, we had to ride back to the car at the Gorge. Due to the layout of the course, it was only about 3 miles away but you've never ridden through the streets of Woonsocket have you?

Five miles later, back at the car, we put the tandem on the car and say hello to all the other competitors checking out the transition area at the Gorge. Did you see the legs on that guy!? We're gonna die.

Gotta love that Deb.

College? What College?

Got the video back from the taping session on Saturday. Uh oh. It didn't really come out very well. For some reason, it looked like we were lobbing the ball over the net instead of hitting with pace. There weren't very many stretches of consistent rallying, his serve was not that good looking (and he was foot faulting), and his overheads were bad. His backhand volleys looked good though.

I think we are going to have to re-shoot. I want to focus tighter on him a bit. We need to work on his serve and well, lots of things. This is not going to be fun.

On top of that, the soccer team lost 2-0. They didn't look that good either.

Is There Anyone Else Like Me?

Here's an essay in the "This I Believe" series on NPR that sounds a lot like something I would write NPR : In Praise of the 'Wobblies'

A New Cam

Bought a new camcorder yesterday (sold the Goldwing so I had to buy something to replace it...). I got the Panasonic PV-GS31. I had been looking at various models all up and down the price range for quite awhile and, as usual, I couldn't decide if the wiz-bang features of the higher priced models out-weighed my cheapskate tendencies. The more expensive cams have better picture quality and more manual controls which appeals to the techie in me but I also know that I barely use any of those kinds of thing in the real world. I just want to point and shoot - the cameras are smarter than I am anyway. So, I got the low priced model and I'm glad I did.

One of the reasons I was pining for a new cam (when I have one that still works) was because the new models (MiniDV) capture digital video. This makes it much easier to send the video to the PC for editing. Plus, you can send the back to the camera from the computer for storage (a tape still holds lots more video than a CD or even a DVD). Well, I hooked up the camera to the PC and guess what. I couldn't get it to send my test video to the computer. I tried everything. I didn't know if the problem was with the camera or the PC so I ended up going back to Circuit City and plugging it into one of their computers. Worked fine. Looser salesman said "you had it on Play right?" "Of course!" I said. Oops... Went home hooked it up again. Works fine. Ok, next time I really am going to read the instructions.

All Taped Up

Patrick from CPOA came over to the tennis courts to film Kyle. I was the hitting partner so we played points, he served, returned serve, volleyed, took overheads. I really have a tough time serving now - my arm just doesn't like it anymore. I sucked it up and went for it though so it didn't look like we were trying scam the prospective coaches. He played pretty well except his overheads sucked. Of course, he was overly hard on himself...

Good Bye Wing

Sold the Goldwing today. A mixture of relief and regret. I really wasn't riding much lately for a number reasons. I want to be extra safe on the bike so I make a point of wearing all the safety gear - helmet, pants, jacket, boots, gloves. Frankly, it's a pain to put all that crap on before going for a ride. Then you have to take it all off when you get where you're going and then repeat to come home. Then there's the aches and pains. My throttle hand really starts to hurt after a few minutes (I think I've got carpal tunnel from mouseing for so many years). Then my neck and back start to hurt after that. I really enjoy the first part of a ride but after a while it just starts to become less and less fun.

On the other hand, Deb and I really liked going for rides. Our favorite was out to the Vanilla Bean in CT for breakfast.

In the end, I couldn't justify making the payments and paying the insurance for what little use I got out of it. I hope I don't regret selling it.

God and Katrina

Once again, a national calamity has given us another opportunity to demonstrate our twisted religious beliefs. Like 9/11 and countless other episodes of suffering and loss of life both large and small, Katrina has brought out the best in religious ill-logic.

One of my favorites was when the mayor or New Orleans, upon finding that the French Quarter had only suffered minor damage proclaimed that God had put up a fence around this area to spare it from the ravages of the hurricane. Obviously, this implies that God was either only powerful enough to save selected areas or He purposefully didn't save certain areas. It also implies that He doesn't really have control of the weather either. I'm sure the zealots have some sort of explanation that exonerates him. Usually it is connected to the "Free Will" idea - yes he is powerful enough to control things but He lets things happen to see what we do and how we cope (like this Apologetics Press - God and Katrina). It's all a big test and if you pass you get to live and if you fail, you die (or get seriously injured if you almost failed I guess).

It truly boggles my mind to see so many people subscribing to this way of thinking.

Oh man, the Westboro Baptist Church FAQ is unbelievably funny and scary at the same time. Man, you absolutely don't want to be near the target of God's wrath when he decides to "purge". You would think that God could be a bit more precise when somebody screws up and has to be punished. Whew! It's like surgery with a chain saw!

Here's a pretty good comment on other religious Katrina-crap In the name of God and Katrina

Open Arms

Kyle and I went down to NYC to watch the U.S. Open. I've been watching that event for over 20 years and this is the first time I'd ever been there in person. We really had a great time.

We went down on Friday and got to Katie's apartment about 1:00. She took us on a tour of New York - Times Square, Empire State, Battery Park, China Town, Little Italy. We met up with Becca and her boyfriend Tom for the latter half. After dinner in China Town, we had bubble tea - milky, iced tea in various strange flavors with large black balls of Tapioca in the bottom. You get these fat straws and suck up the tea and tapioca balls - crazy!

Saturday we hit the subway for the trip to the stadium. After a short wait in line, we rush in to Armstrong stadium to watch Gasques and Lubacic. Then we went to Ashe to watch Nadal and Blake (Blake won). Then to some outer courts to see Malisse and somebody. Then back to Ashe to see Agassi and Berdych. Then doubles with Mahesh Bupati and Somebody Damm against Lubacic and Acic? Then to Armstrong for Robredo and somebody. Basically, we overdosed on tennis. We didn't leave until about 11:00. Got back to the car at Katie's and left for home about midnight. Pulled in the driveway at about 3:00 AM. Ouch!

We had a great time though. It was great seeing Katie and Becca and Kyle was totally overwhelmed by the tennis. A pretty good trip...